PrusaSlicer Compatibility and Issues With Setting Profiles, Advice?
 
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krashDH
(@krashdh)
Active Member
PrusaSlicer Compatibility and Issues With Setting Profiles, Advice?

Hey All;

So just DL'ed PrusaSlicer 2.4 and am having some issues.

I'll start with saying that I'll be using this with a QIDI X-Max. QIDI sent over the .ini file to get me started which was great. I was able so save the physical printer settings as well as the user presets from that .ini for the QIDI. They show up in the printer dropdown menu in the "Printer Settings" tab.

Here's where the complication starts. I also have an .ini file that has some starting points for Print and Filament settings. This is not the same .ini file that QIDI sent me. Although in the file QIDI sent, there are some basic settings for the Print and Filament tabs.

Now, what I want to do, is kind of marry the 2 together. So basically what I've been trying to do is this:

I'll import the .ini that has the Print and Filament tab settings. All good, I do a save for each of those profiles and change it to a name (of the material) that I can remember. But in the .ini file, it's married to a Printer already that comes in with that file. Ok so far. Now what I want to do is keep those Print and Filament settings, but choose the Printer I created from the final tab, which has my created printer profile.

The issue: As soon as I choose the printer profile for the QIDI, all of the settings in the Filament and Print tabs for my custom starting point revert back to a "default" state and don't keep the profiles that I renamed them as. When I go in the dropdown menu, I don't even see those options.

I know it has something to do with those settings being related to the printer. If I switch back to the printer that came with the .ini file, then the profiles I created for the material show back up.

There's a lot of changes in the starting point that I need compared to any of the presets which is why I'm using the .ini file (s). Is there a way to do what I'm trying to do? It's getting frustrating, I've tried every combination of saves, clicks, order of operations and I can't seem to marry my printer profile with the print and filament settings that I'm importing. 

Any advice would be greatly appreciated, thank you in advance!

This topic was modified 2 years ago 2 times by krashDH
Posted : 22/03/2022 7:36 pm
krashDH
(@krashdh)
Active Member
Topic starter answered:
RE: PrusaSlicer Compatibility and Issues With Setting Profiles, Advice?

I guess I can't edit a post after a certain amount of time, but I forgot to mention that the .ini file that has the Filament and Print Settings was created in PrusaSlicer.

Posted : 22/03/2022 7:56 pm
Neophyl
(@neophyl)
Illustrious Member
RE: PrusaSlicer Compatibility and Issues With Setting Profiles, Advice?

Yeah edit time is limited.  

Seen this before with stuff distributed by the manufacturer of the polylite filaments.  Similar/same issue with a ini file from a website. 

A lot of those ini files supplied even though created with PS aren't the correct options when trying to distribute profiles.  Manufacturers would be better creating config bundles with all their filaments/printers etc in, or even just a plain old project file.  See when you do an ini file the 3 sections are supposed to be split into their individual areas, so print, filament and printer.  What sometimes happens is that they all get lumped into one section so when you load in the printer what its actually doing in effect is loading in all 3 sets of settings as they are all grouped under the printer for example.  Cant say for sure without seeing it.

If you wouldn't mind zipping up and attaching what they sent you someone could take a look at it and try and see what's going wrong.

If they had used a project file you could have just loaded that in, got the same 3 profiles and then choosen which ones to save and they shouldn't get all mixed up.  

Posted : 22/03/2022 8:38 pm
krashDH
(@krashdh)
Active Member
Topic starter answered:
RE:

 

Posted by: @neophyl

Yeah edit time is limited.  

Seen this before with stuff distributed by the manufacturer of the polylite filaments.  Similar/same issue with a ini file from a website. 

A lot of those ini files supplied even though created with PS aren't the correct options when trying to distribute profiles.  Manufacturers would be better creating config bundles with all their filaments/printers etc in, or even just a plain old project file.  See when you do an ini file the 3 sections are supposed to be split into their individual areas, so print, filament and printer.  What sometimes happens is that they all get lumped into one section so when you load in the printer what its actually doing in effect is loading in all 3 sets of settings as they are all grouped under the printer for example.  Cant say for sure without seeing it.

If you wouldn't mind zipping up and attaching what they sent you someone could take a look at it and try and see what's going wrong.

If they had used a project file you could have just loaded that in, got the same 3 profiles and then choosen which ones to save and they shouldn't get all mixed up.  

Thanks for the response, good to know I'm not crazy.

Here's the zip file. In the _max file is the one from QIDI with the printer params (which also included some printer/filament settings). The other is the Prusa .ini which has the printer/filament settings I want. Let me know if the link works, this is a bit different forum format than I'm used to.

INI_files

This post was modified 2 years ago by krashDH
Posted : 22/03/2022 8:56 pm
krashDH
(@krashdh)
Active Member
Topic starter answered:
RE:

@neophyl, I'm not too savvy with this stuff, but I opened up the .ini files in notepad. I think I know what you're saying by the suppliers "mashing" all of the settings into one unit. 

It almost seems, if the Prusa .ini file were not to be related to a certain machine, then this might work with adding my QIDI profile. Or if the QIDI .ini didn't have the print and filament settings.

Or if I could group the machine parameters all in one bundle and replace them in the other .ini file. Then this might work. The problem is (it might be a good thing) in the .ini files, everything is alphabetical. It would be much easier to replace a "chunk" of the parameters if they were all grouped accordingly instead of alphabetically, then you could just copy-pasta a chunk. Or delete say, machine settings all together that way when you import, it doesn't try to replace the machine settings.

This might be getting a little above my paygrade, hopefully this might be easier for somebody to take a look at, as I don't want to screw anything up and potentially my machine when the code doesn't execute correctly.

It seems like that when I try all this, there are pop-ups that say "discard" or "transfer" and they seem to work for some of the settings but not for others. I can see a few values changing that shouldn't.

This post was modified 2 years ago by krashDH
Posted : 23/03/2022 12:42 am
krashDH
(@krashdh)
Active Member
Topic starter answered:
RE: PrusaSlicer Compatibility and Issues With Setting Profiles, Advice?

It seems I've run into a push-pull situation. I thought I might be onto something here with the order of operations for importing. I imported my PrusaSlicer_max (from QIDI) file first. That gives me the parameter settings for my XMAX machine. I then did a "save" of just that printer profile and named it "XMAX" .

Then I imported the printer_filament_setting file from the Prusa parameters that I need. What that does though is override everything, including the current printer that I have loaded ("XMAX"). But now, I have the correct Prusa filament and print settings. Now, when I go back into the Printer Settings tab, it is switched to what loaded with the printer_filament_setting.ini had embedded in it. I can activate the dropdown menu and find my "XMAX" printer profile that I created.

Now when I choose that, there are some popups. The first is the custom G-Code. It asks if I want to keep it or discard (which if I discard, my "XMAX" start stop gcode and machine params are held), which I do. I discard

Then though, there are a couple more popups asking if I want to transfer or discard basically all of the other settings (print and extrude). Technically, I want to transfer those to my "XMAX" printer profile. Now, it DOES transfer a bunch of them, but then a few it doesn't transfer and they revert back. Some selections basically aren't or can't be transferred. It's hard to tell what is kept and what isn't because there is so much information.

I think I need a way to import all of the items from the printer_filament_settings.ini file without disrupting or altering the XMAX printer settings.

Posted : 23/03/2022 1:48 am
Neophyl
(@neophyl)
Illustrious Member
RE: PrusaSlicer Compatibility and Issues With Setting Profiles, Advice?

OK.  I think I see what's happening.  When you know how things work it makes sense.  

Ini files are generally just lists of settings.  You load them in and they replace the settings on the 3 profiles (Print, filament, Printer) with the ones from the file.  They are temporary, in that they arent saved as part of YOUR system.  Just something you are currently using.

If you decide you like them and want to re-use them you need to save it as a profile on your install.  Basically what you did with the Max printer.  Going up to the disc save icon and saving it and giving it a unique name.  Once saved this way then its part of your config.

The first ini file for the Max printer is a basic type like this.  It just has settings.  Ok it has settings for all 3 profiles but its just settings.  You may notice when loaded that all 3 profiles names change to the same temporary (Prusa SLicer_max.ini) name as thats what the ini file is called.

Ok so far so good.

Then we come to the second ini file you included.  The Printer_filament_setting.ini one.

This one is also a list of settings...BUT its not only settings.  It also has references to system profiles in there.  It looks like they generated that ini file with modified prusa print and filament profiles and an Anycubic kosel printer (which is also a system printer) selected.  So what PS is doing is its loading in that printer profile as well as the others from the ones stored as part of the system install and then its changing the specific changed values contained in the ini file. So what you end up with if you look at the profile drop downs are '0.20mm Quality (modified)' for the print settings, 'Generic PLA (Modified)' for filament and Anycubic Kossel Linear Plus for the printer, which is unmodified.

And thats where it starts to get complicated. Because its loaded in the base system profiles its also loaded everything else associated with those profiles. So for example the filament has compatible printers conditions as part of it and is also part of the vendor system space. Same with the Print Profile, both have compatible with Prusa MK2/3 printers in there. So when you change back to your Max saved printer as its not on the list of compatible printers you cant use the print or filament profile information.

What you need to do is after loading in the second ini and before switching to your Max printer, is to remove the compatible printers conditions and detach them from the system presets. You must be in expert mode to see those settings and they are located on Print Settings>Dependencies and Filament Settings>Dependencies. The Detach from system is a button and the dependencies are in a text field. 

Once you have removed those then save them with unique names. You should then have 3 stored to your install generic profiles that can be used with anything.

Hope that helps.

Posted : 23/03/2022 7:57 am
krashDH
(@krashdh)
Active Member
Topic starter answered:
RE: PrusaSlicer Compatibility and Issues With Setting Profiles, Advice?

@neophyl, thank you!

I was up late last night scrambling my brain on this.

I came upon this link:

https://projects.ttlexceeded.com/3dprinting_prusaslicer_profiles.html

It was exactly what I needed to start to figure this out. Your post confirms this is the way I need to do it.

PrusaSlicer has a lot of great options, IF your machine happens to be part of the list with embedded settings. It's definitely not intuitive if your machine is not. Going to give this a go, should be able to help me grab some starter settings from other printers as well so I can fine tune them with my machine.

Posted : 23/03/2022 1:29 pm
Neophyl
(@neophyl)
Illustrious Member
RE: PrusaSlicer Compatibility and Issues With Setting Profiles, Advice?

Ah you found Bob's site, good.  I often post links to the info in it and Bob does hang around here too (although haven't seen him post for awhile).  User Bobstro.  

Bob did a 'detached' list of filament profiles that you can download.  As usual though I can't find the link now.  I did something similar also awhile ago but Bob's is newer and the archive I uploaded is gone now, Prusa (or someone) purged a bunch of old data from the forum which caused problems with some of the older tutorial posts at the time.  So storing it off site like Bob has makes sense.  

If Prusa or someone ever gets around to doing some editing tools for the Vendor spaces the they will become a lot more powerful and usable.  Unfortunately at the moment its at the level of hand editing.

Posted : 23/03/2022 2:32 pm
krashDH
(@krashdh)
Active Member
Topic starter answered:
RE: PrusaSlicer Compatibility and Issues With Setting Profiles, Advice?

If you happen to find those individual filament files that would be HUGE.

I played with exporting bundles, that's exactly what I was looking for in my above posts, for things to be grouped together. That was how I was thinking one could copy-paste parameters in.

I was able to detach the parameters from the printer then save it. There's a checkbox that you can uncheck and delete the dependency parameter to the printer. That allows your  new parameters to be used with any printer.

Might be cumbersome for a while, but it would be nice to have good starting points for all materials. Although these days, I'm really leaning on only printing PLA+, CF-Nylon, and PETG. Most of my prints need strength so CF-Nylon works well, but the others are cheaper for quick prototype jobs.

Posted : 23/03/2022 3:11 pm
Neophyl
(@neophyl)
Illustrious Member
RE:

Still cant find the newer ones Bob did but the ones I extracted should be attached.

From back in 2020 so the list is a bit more limited that what is available now.  Also as its a config bundle containing multiple ones you should use the import config bundle option.   As that imports and adds all the profiles you might want to trim out the ones you don't want before importing, which is probably quicker than adding them and using the delete profile button in PS.

Posted : 23/03/2022 4:27 pm
krashDH
(@krashdh)
Active Member
Topic starter answered:
RE: PrusaSlicer Compatibility and Issues With Setting Profiles, Advice?

Thank you for that list, those should all be good starting points!

Posted : 23/03/2022 4:34 pm
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